NanoRad: Radiolabeled Nanoparticles for Imaging

Molecular imaging is a biomedical research discipline which has quickly emerged to allow for the monitoring, characterization, and quantification of biomarkers and biological events in living organisms. It includes a large plethora of techniques, each one of which provides different information on anatomy, function, or metabolism of living beings. Multimodality, as the combination of more than one of these techniques, has proven to be one of the best options to offer unparalleled results.

As well described by Aritizia and co-workers in recent times, positron emission tomography (PET) offers whole body functional and quantitative imaging opportunities but lacks spatial resolution, whereas fluorescence imaging, which provides high-resolution images, is limited by light penetration in tissues especially in bigger living beings. NanoRad hosts in the silica core fluorescent molecules and, on the external shell, it is functionalized with a chelating agent (e.g. NODA-GA, DOTA, others) to allow the easy coupling with radio isotype directly in the customer facility. In addition, thanks to the modularity of the reactive moieties available for bioconjugation, NanoRad can be completed with a targeting molecule (e.g. antibody, oligonucleotide, others) on the shell. The final result is a multimodal reagent allowing for PET in vivo detection and, after radioactive decay and animal sacrifice, for fluorescence detection in fluorescence and confocal microscopy.